


This is something, and this is nothing

by wordfrenzy (orphan_account)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Fluff, M/M, Mindwiping, Non-Consensual, Non-Graphic Torture, Slash, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 02:04:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3832957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/wordfrenzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky falls. They find him. And they change him.</p><p>
  <i>His name. B —</i>
</p><p>
  <i>He knows it starts with that letter.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is something, and this is nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Please be cautious of the tags.

"Steve," is the first thing he says as he wakes.

Snow freezes his skin. This is nothing, he thinks — swallows down the scream that builds and holds onto faith.

The sky is hazy above him, murky clouds and crystals that fall and stick to his eyelashes. His arm twinges, what's left of it, but it's numbed by the cold. That's why this is nothing, and yet it isn't, but he thinks of the times he and Steve dislocated their shoulders from climbing trees, or bullets in his leg at enemy lines, dug out with bare hands and dressed with dirty bandages. This is nothing, because if Steve were here, he'd shake it off and keep going; Bucky must, too.

His blood has painted the white underneath him, and it surrounds him in an angel of red. He drags himself along the round, and he knows it won't do a thing, and within moments he's so tired, aches, and can't keep his eyes open. He's on his back, and he looks up at the train bridge, empty and void of Steve.

Bucky thinks of him as he sinks further into the cold, and into the loss of light.

.

Someone is hauling him back, and he's vaguely aware of them speaking, an accent loud in his ears. His arm still bleeds, a trail of red following him as he's taken away. Hope makes him believe it can be a place of warmth, a place that leads him back to his friends, to Steve.

Steve.

He thinks of —

.

Bucky sees him, Zola. He wishes it is a dream.

The rounded glasses are perched on the edge of his nose, a balding scalp — so painfully obvious it's real as the shadow looms over him. He can't move, the straps around his arms holding him down on a cold, hard table, needles in his veins with whatever concotion he doesn't want to know, only rip away from it. As he strains, thrashes around, he's held down, and the table only grows colder beneath his back.

Zola moves closer. "Sergeant Barnes," he says, smiling. "The procedure has already begun."

A saw hovers over his half-arm; it's all of it then, the white lab coat Zola wears, other scientists or doctors jotting down notes on the clipboards, the fact that Bucky is stripped from the waist up, that causes a clutch of fear to dig into his stomach like claws. So very cold claws, relentless and torturing, and he fights, he struggles, even as hands pin him down so hard that his head bounces off the table and stars dot his vision. He'll always fight, no matter what.

Even when Zola says, "Do it."

And a blinding pain sears across his skin, and his lung-crushing scream fills the room.

.

There is only unbearable, white agony, all over his body.

.

"Sedate him!"

Bucky — yes, Bucky, that's his name; James Barnes, 32557038 — has a hand strangling the air from a guard. His arm is strong, heavy metal and thick platelets that web through the skin of his shoulder in ugly stitchwork. It's easy, and for a moment, he keeps squeezing, until he thinks he hears cracking of his knuckles or the guard's bones, but then there's a needle in him again, and he lets go. It crashes down on him in a single gasp.

He's already a monster, becoming what they want him to be. His hair is longer, curling on his sweaty neck, dark circles under his eyes that aren't so unusual, but the combination is unrecognisable, all those times he's stared at his reflection in the glass, before the ice sinks into his skin, and he sleeps all over again.

For a moment, he doesn't want Steve here, not like this.

Doesn't want to see how easy it can be to kill someone, with the power of his arm and the lack of distractions in his mind that would tell him to stop. How, he can see it now, an abyss in his gaze that only focuses on the job — it's why he fights again, why it drives him to break the restraints and head straight for Zola. How, even in his daze of drugs, he manages to reach out, ready to end it all, find a chance to go back home.

They have him back in the chair, just as easily, holding him down. It makes him vomit, bile that leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, and this time he chokes as a second needle is jabbed into his neck, and all goes black again.

.

(He dreams of them together.

"The potatoes —"

"Shit."

Bucky snorts. "Such a dirty mouth."

Lifting the over-boiling pot off the burner, Steve glances over his shoulder at him, rolling his eyes, but there's a smirk in his voice. "Yeah, and I kiss my mother with it and everything."

Then, as he can't help himself, Bucky spins Steve around, and presses him against the counter. His hand runs through Steve's hair, easing him down and slanting their lips together. It's this scene, of heavy breaths, skin-against-skin, dressed in only their underwear to keep cool from the stifling heat, that he loves the most, in the comfort of privacy. It's the way Steve melts against him that he focuses on, remembers, holds close to him.

They've done this hundreds of times. When it's raining and drops splat against the windows, and they're lounging on the worn-out couch, just kissing; winter, when it's cold, bitterly, the only way to keep warm in the burrow of their bed, clutching at each other. The kisses come as if they're the most natural things to do, with Steve sighing into his mouth, Bucky brushing his hands up the smoothness of Steve's spine, and each feeling like the first — the first being moments after Bucky had told Steve of his departure, his enlisting, and Steve had kissed him as if clinging to it, to the thought it would be their last.

Bucky pulls away. "Y'know, you're not a bad kisser for a guy who runs his mouth off."

"If that's your idea of a compliment, I wonder why I kiss you at all."

"Cause," he says, smiling. "I'm your best guy."

"Yeah. Guess I am."

And the scene fades away, fades with the rest of the things he's starting to forget.)

.

They strap him down to the table — the cold, hard table, as static buzzes in his ears, a familiar sound he's accustomed with fear. It digs into his stomach, like thorns of a rose, the colour of blood, and he screams.

.

The man, (Zola?), stands over him.

"Repeat what I say: I am the Winter Soldier."

It doesn't feel right, that name. It lacks personality, humaity, but it makes him look down at himself. Is he humaity? He shakes his head, keeps his mouth firmly closed. Zola sighs, walks away, and the plastic guard is shoved into his mouth. Even though he expects it, his scream is louder than ever.

.

His name.

B —

He knows it starts with that letter.

.

They torture him. There are punches to his face, broken bones and swollen eyes, water filling his lungs as he's held down in a tub of ice water. It tears him apart from the inside, but it doesn't compare to when he thinks of Steve, his face is fuzzy around the edges.

He keeps fighting, and this time he kills. They — he doesn't care who — slump to the floor as he snaps their necks, smashes their skulls, and each time the restraints grow in number; two guards, then three, then four, and even though he'll always fight, part of him believes maybe he won't. Maybe inhumaity will grab him and never let go, faster than he can run.

Steve's name is on his lips as the darkness consumes him.

.

"What is your name?"

He doesn't know.

.

("Are you gonna let me sleep?"

"No," Bucky says. "You've known me long enough to know that, right?"

"Unfortunately, yeah."

"Your words hurt sometimes —" He's cut off by Steve kissing him, but it's not rough, rather intimate, so much that Bucky feels a slight flush colour his cheeks. It slows, and he cups Steve's face, leaning away until their foreheads rest against each other. "But I guess I won't hold a grudge."

Steve smiles, and links their hands together. "Course you won't. I'm your best guy, remember?"

They kiss again, still slow, savouring each moment, as he knows when morning comes the false idenity will come up. They'll go to work, earn money, and act as if they aren't together, are more than friends. They don't mind, though, because they're still together, even if it is in secret, in the confines of their home, and that's all they need. It's all he's ever needed, is Steve by his side, in whatever way possible.

Even with this, he, the Soldier, can't remember when they were that day, can't name the street they lived on, or what time it was. He remember eyes, the taste of Steve's lips on his own, and he clings to the memory; it's the only thing he can cling to, as everything else is slipping through his very metal fingers.)

.

"Prep him."

He knows those words. He tenses.

And screams.

.

"I am the Winter Soldier."

.

They give him a gun, and tell him to pull the trigger. It's oddly light in his left hand, his metal fingers flexing around it.

He hesitates.

A man with blond hair and young face backhands him across the face, his neck snapping to the side with its force. The target, another man with a bag over his head, struggles in his restraints and muffles words that don't matter. It's like looking at himself, but he's the one with the gun, with the orders. There is more waiting, more stares that ask of him, and in the end, he squeezes, and the bullets hits the man square in the chest.

This is something, and this is nothing.

.

He's on a bridge, and is told his name is Bucky. The name means nothing to him, but the man who says it — Steve? — reminds him of a boiling pot of water and swearing, of blue eyes, and lips he used to kiss.

.

"But I knew him."

And he did.

He does.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fairly quick fic — hence the mistakes, probably — but something I've always wanted to try writing. I hope you enjoy! Please leave a kudos! ♡


End file.
